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The motivation for writing this thesis derives from the lengthy conflict between Israelis and Palestinians and its effects on Jews who have been engaged politically and intellectually in challenging a paradigm most prevalent among Australian and other diasporic Jewry since the establishment of the state of Israel in 1948. The paradigm asserts that Israelis’ right to live safely within secure borders must be of exclusive concern. To challenge this exclusively therefore, by speaking in support of Palestinian justice and needs for similar basic conditions of life which have not yet been met, is viewed by many Jews as disloyalty and even as antisemitism. Australian Jewry has become known as Zionism’s ‘last bastion’. What were the particular conditions in Australia that led to Zionism and identification with Israel becoming the key symbol of Jewish identity within the Jewish community? The Zionist project has been sustained by deeply held metaphors. These include the historically-based claims and lived experiences of victimisation and vulnerability as Jews, whether individual and collective. Through revealing and synthesising the complexities and contradictions that are inherent in Jewish-Zionist subjectivities today, the thesis hopes to illuminate more generally questions of identity formation, diaspora and community, power and victimisation, and the unifying force of discourse. / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Thesis (M.A.)--West Virginia University, 2009. / Title from document title page. Document formatted into pages; contains vi, 148 p. : ill., (some col.), col. maps. Includes abstract. Includes bibliographical references (p. 138-148).

The focus of this report is an examination of the so-called “refusenik” soldiers of Israel. Since Israel’s victory in the 1967 war and the resulting occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, there have been soldiers in the IDF that have refused to serve outside the pre-1967 borders. These soldiers, called “refuseniks,” practice selective refusal. Unlike conscientious objectors, the refusenik soldiers are not pacifists. Their protest is not a condemnation of all war. Rather, it is a calculated protest against the continuing occupation of land outside the Green Line. Although the roots of the refusenik movement can be traced to the 1967 war, the movement did not gain momentum until the 1982 invasion of Lebanon. Initially enjoying broad public support, the war in Lebanon became less popular when it did not end after its initial goals were met. Yesh Gvul, the most famous of the refusenik organizations, was born during this time of waning public support for the war. Other boosts for the refuseniks have come during the first intifada and second intifada. The refuseniks come from varied backgrounds and political affiliations, but the “typical” refusenik is the Ashkenazi male reservist, usually statistically speaking a married, highly educated city-dweller. The military has not followed a coherent strategy for dealing with the refuseniks, alternating between conciliation and accommodation at some time periods and harsh punishment at others. / text

In this paper, I consider the collection of short stories and photographs Neighborhood Album A by Yemeni Israeli author Simha Zaramati Asta. I argue that Asta contributes to a distinctively Yemeni Jewish literature and identity in Israel. While Asta could be considered a Mizrahi author, I claim that a study of Asta’s text as Mizrahi in fact erases the distinctive Yemeni elements of Asta’s writing. Instead, Asta is purposeful about her inclusion of Yemeni culture and her establishment of Yemeni identity in her text. This Yemeni culture is evident in Asta’s inclusion of the songs of Yemeni Jewish women which constitute an oral tradition of memory within Yemen and Israel. Asta further creates a distinctive Yemeni identity through a sense of place in the Yemeni Quarter of Tel Aviv in both her stories and photographs. Through descriptions of the sights, smells, and traditions of the Yemeni Quarter of Tel Aviv, Asta elevates the neighborhood, claiming it as a place where the divine spirit can be found. While Asta is purposeful in her creation of a distinctively Yemeni Jewish literature and identity, she demonstrates the hybridization of this Yemeni Jewish literature and identity with Israeli literature and identity. By noting the importance of Yemeni Jews to the creation of Israel and the influence of Israel on these Yemeni Jews, Asta claims Israeli identity for Yemeni Jews. She demonstrates the hybridization of the Yemeni Jewish identity and Israeli identity through intertextual references to canonical Israeli poets and authors. Yet while Asta values this hybridization, she uses the characters in her stories to question whether the hybridization of Yemeni Jews in Israel can in fact succeed. / text

Through the reading of several novels and movies produced in Arabic, French, and Italian between the 1980s and the 2000s, in this dissertation I provide a literary and transmedia contribution to the field of Mediterranean studies. Responding to the challenge brought by the regional category of Mediterranean to singular national and linguistic understandings of literature and cinema, I employ a comparative and multidisciplinary methodology to read novels by Baha’ Taher, Abdelwahab Meddeb, Abdelmalek Smari, and movies by film directors Merzak Allouache, Abdellatif Kechiche, and Vittorio De Seta. I define these works as “harboring narratives,” as they engage with the two shores of the Mediterranean in a complex process of interiorization and negotiation, opening routes of meaning across languages, societies and cultures. As they challenge constructions of otherness that materialize in present-day conflicts in the region, the works of these novelists and filmmakers give voice to a perspective on the Mediterranean radically different from that upheld by the “paradigms of discord.” Whereas according to these paradigms there is nothing in the Mediterranean but an iron curtain, these works present migration and conflict, historiography and religion, intimacy and translation as experiences shared across countries and societies in the region. By following routes of meaning that draw together the linguistic, the geographical, the economic, the historical, and the religious, I study how these novelists and filmmakers establish relationships between “horizons of belonging” and “elsewhere,” selfhood and otherness. In so doing, I respond to Kinoshita and Mallette’s call for challenging the “monolingualism” inherent in our contemporary ways of reading linguistic and literary traditions. As I show how the routes of meaning opened by these novelists and filmmakers across the region lead to hope that one day we will rejoice in sharing a common Mediterranean shore, however, I caution against easy enthusiasms. These novelists and filmmakers urge us to respond to the challenge of the present-day conflicts they address in their works, and a shared Mediterranean shore will eventually appear on the horizon only after we overcome monolingual conceptions of selfhood and otherness, setting sail towards a shore we have never seen.

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This thesis examines the initiation and dynamics of accommodation in protracted conflicts in the developing world characterized by important stakes and major asymmetries. The case study is the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and in particular Palestinian strategy from 1991--2000. This thesis argues that external politico-military concerns are the main explanatory factors affecting the pursuit of accommodation in this type of case. Powerful third parties play a significant role in initiating/mediating processes of accommodation and in providing assurances/incentives to encourage its pursuit. Bilateral conditions, especially perceptions of irreversible decline by the weaker party and solid expectations of reciprocity from its opponent, are the key factors in generating meaningful accommodative moves. Difficult economic conditions serve as an additional spur for the pursuit of accommodation while difficult political conditions act as a constraint. However, established leaders with strong nationalist credentials have greater room for manoeuvre on foreign policy issues.

Denna uppsats Judehatet i Sverige - en undersökning om hur antisemitism kommer till uttryck i Malmö handlar om hur antisemitismen har utvecklats och fått ett starkt fotfäste i den svenska staden Malmö. Genom en teoretisk provtagning har jag valt antale intervjuade personer utifrån deras möjlighet att bidra med relevant kunskap. Jag har även använt mig utav en kvalitativ intervjumetod med tre informanter från den judiska församlingen i Malmö och jag har haft för avsikt att undersöka hur antisemitismen har utvecklats i Malmö och hur detta upplevs av judar. Genom olika artiklar och annan relevant litteratur har jag försökt utvidga det judiska perspektivet om hur stämningen i Malmö upplevs. Analysen belyser hur judar i Malmö upplever att antisemitismen kommer till uttryck och hur judefientligheten ökat i staden samt hur den pågående Israel-Palestinakonflikten påverkar de fientliga stämningarna i staden. Analysen lyfter även fram vilka eventuella orsaker som ligger bakom denna utveckling och på vilket sätt mina informanter tror att man kan arbeta bort antisemitismen i staden. / This thesis "Jew-hatred in Sweden - a study on how anti-Semitism is manifested in Malmö" is about how anti-Semitism has been developed and gained a strong foothold in the Swedish city of Malmö. Through a theoretical sampling I selected the number of interviewed persons based on their ability to contribute with relevant knowledge. I have also used a qualitative interview method with three informants from the Jewish community in Malmö and my intention has been to explore how Anti-Semitism has evolved in Malmö and how it affects Jews. Through various articles and other relevant literature I have tried to expand the Jewish perspective on how the mood in Malmö is experienced by them. The analysis highlights how the Jews in Malmö feel that anti-Semitism is expressed and how hostility against Jews has increased and hos the Israeli-Palestinian conflict affects the hostile atmosphere in the city. The analysis also highlights possible reasons behind this development and the way in which my informants believe that they can work against anti-Semitism in the city.

The imbroglio of Jerusalem is arguably at the center of the Arab-Israeli conflict and presents an impasse to establishing peace. Its capacity to evoke powerful emotions is the key to understanding the connection between politics and sacred.1 The intent of this work is to closely examine the connection between politics and holy space by analyzing how Hamas' use of Jerusalem's sanctity and space for its symbolic value during the first Intifaḍa (1987--1993) contributed to simultaneously fueling the Intifaḍa and creating the potential to thwart peace in a number of ways: by portraying the Palestinian-Israeli conflict as a continuation of the conflict between the Muslim and Jewish communities in seventh century Arabia; justifying the Muslim Palestinian claim that Israel is an illegitimate entity on Islamic land; rejecting any form of negotiation or peace process as un-Islamic; mobilizing the masses; justifying armed struggle for Jerusalem in the form of jihad; gaining political influence; and presenting an alternative to the national-secular agenda of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO). / 1Roger Friedland and Richard D. Hecht, "The Politics of Sacred Spaces: Jerusalem's Temple Mount/al-haram al-sharif" in Sacred Places and Profane Spaces: Essays in the Geographics of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, ed. Jamie Scott and Paul Simpson-Housley (New York: Greenwood Press, 1991): 23.